The Rangers are nearing the quarter-mark of their season, and the questions around the team are starting to pile up just as the road trip winds down. Friday’s game in Vancouver will be their 21st of the year, and with that in sight, the goalie situation, the lineup mix, and even the trade deadline picture are all getting attention.
One of the biggest topics remains whether the Rangers should still be hunting for help in net. They could use a veteran No. 3 goalie in case one of their current tandem, Joonas Korpisalo and Dylan Garand, gets hurt.
That is a different conversation from replacing Igor Shesterkin, who is out for the season. Korpisalo is back healthy after missing a month with a lower-body injury, and the Rangers should probably see what he can do before making another move.
If they do decide they need an upgrade, Jordan Binnington is a name to watch. He is currently backing up in St.
Louis, won a Stanley Cup with the Blues in 2019, and was Canada’s No. 1 at the Olympics. He is in the final year of his contract, which would make him a clean rental.
The catch: he has an .851 save percentage and a 4.27 GAA right now.
Another surprise has been Tye Kartye, who has forced his way into the top six and entered Wednesday’s game in Calgary tied for fourth on the team in scoring with 13 points, including six goals and seven assists. That is a long way from where he started: undrafted out of junior hockey, signed by Seattle as an undrafted free agent in 2022, then claimed off waivers by the Rangers last season.
He was mostly used on the third line and as a penalty killer. Now he is logging 20 minutes a night and working on the power play.
In his first game back in Seattle on Saturday, he scored a power play goal. So far, he has been the team’s best story.
The center-ice puzzle is still unsettled, too. Noah Laba looks like a natural fit for the fourth line.
At 6-3 and 218 pounds, he brings size, defensive reliability, faceoff skill, and penalty-killing value. He entered Wednesday’s game in Calgary winning 56.2% of his draws.
The issue is offense: as a third-line center, he had no goals and five assists in 19 games. The Rangers do not have many alternatives at 3C, which is why coach Mike Sullivan has tried Will Cuylle in the middle for a couple of games.
Cuylle is a natural left wing, so the move is still in the early stages. It remains too soon to judge, though putting him between Eeli Tolvanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand would be interesting.
There is also the broader question of what happens if the season keeps slipping away without Shesterkin. Losing him was a major blow and badly dents the Rangers’ playoff chances, but the decision to sell at the deadline would not sit with Chris Drury alone.
That call would belong to ownership. The team’s SEC filing showed the Rangers lost $30.5 million in fiscal year 2026 and $23.3 million in 2025, when they missed the playoffs.
Their last profit came in 2024, when they made the Eastern Conference final and earned $26.8 million. Ownership approved a full rebuild in 2018 and later agreed to a “retool’’ in January of this year, but the question now is whether they would be willing to miss the playoffs for a third straight year and absorb another $20-plus million loss.
On defense, Scott Morrow has given himself a real chance to stay in the picture. When asked last week whether there was a path for him to remain in the lineup once everyone is healthy, Sullivan said “of course there is.”
Morrow was scratched for the first 14 games of the season before stepping in on Nov. 1 because of Sean Durzi’s undisclosed injury. Entering Wednesday, he had played five straight games and had one assist with a plus-2 rating.
Durzi is skating with the team in a no-contact jersey and appears close to returning. He will go back into the lineup when he is ready, but Morrow may still have a route to stay if he can play the left side.
He said he played there in college, and with Alberts Smits out, that could matter.
In Other News...
Rangers Face One Big Test In Surprising Early Playoff Push
The Rangers have spent the early part of the season proving they can survive a difficult stretch better than most expected. At 10-8-1 and sitting third in the Metropolitan Division, they have kept themselves in the mix despite a wave of injuries, including the season-ending loss of Igor Shesterkin. Dylan Garand has helped steady the crease, and Joonas Korpisalos return has given the staff another option as the team tries to keep pace.
What makes the next stretch so interesting is how much it could shape the rest of the year. New York has already shown enough resilience to stay relevant in the standings, but the margin for error is still thin in a division that rarely gives much away. The Rangers are in position to push for a playoff spot, yet the question now is whether this early survival act can turn into something more sustainable once the schedule and the competition tighten up. [Read more 🡒]
Mike Sullivan Finally Saw The Rangers Team He Wants
The Rangers looked far more like the team Mike Sullivan has been pushing for in their second meeting with Edmonton, even if the final result still came back as a 3-1 loss. New York generated more shots and more high-danger chances than it had in the first matchup, and captain J.T. Miller said the group was better in a number of areas against one of the leagues toughest opponents. Jaroslav Chmelar provided the lone Rangers goal, giving the night at least one sign of progress.
Sullivan also had to deal with the familiar headache of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, two stars who can tilt a game even when the Rangers are doing a lot right. Edmonton goalie Devon Levi helped keep New York from turning that territorial edge into a bigger payoff with several key saves, leaving the Rangers with a performance they could point to and still a result they could not fully cash in on. The encouraging part is obvious. The frustrating part is just as clear. [Read more 🡒]
Mika Zibanejad Is Giving Rangers A Scoring Problem They Cant Ignore
Mika Zibanejads season has taken on a strange shape for the Rangers: the playmaking is still there, and in some ways it has been better than ever, but the shot volume has dipped to a level that stands out for all the wrong reasons. Through 19 games, he has been setting up teammates at a career-high rate while producing only three goals, a reminder that even when he is driving offense, he is not doing it in the same direct way the Rangers have come to expect.
The concern is not that Zibanejad has lost his touch. His shot velocity is still among the leagues best, which makes the drop in attempts even more notable, because the threat of his release has long been part of what makes New Yorks attack harder to defend. When he is firing less often, the Rangers lose some of that unpredictability, and for a team that leans on him to tilt the ice, that is a scoring issue they cannot simply overlook. [Read more 🡒]